Values Voters and Vanderslice: The Big Lie

Again we are regaled with stories about "Values Voters" and how to get them. Self proclaimed Dem values voters guru Mara Vanderslice has a good publicist and was able to have this story placed in the NYTimes:

Party strategists and nonpartisan pollsters credit the operative, Mara Vanderslice . . . with helping a handful of Democratic candidates make deep inroads among white evangelical and churchgoing Roman Catholic voters in Kansas, Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania.
Exit polls show that Ms. Vanderslice’s candidates did 10 percentage points or so better than Democrats nationally among those voters, who make up about a third of the electorate.

Sounds impressive right? It is a load of crap. I'll explain on the flip.

So Ms. Vanderslice's candidates did 10% better than Dems nationally did they? So what does that mean in round numbers. It means that they won about 38% of the white evangelical vote, as Dems nationally did about 28% with white evangelicals. Nationally Dems won 38% of folks who attend church more than once a week and 46% of those who attend at least once a week. Nationally, Dems captured 50% of white Catholic voters. It is hard to er, slice and dice what Vanderslice is supposed to have done. But I will look at one race in Ohio involving a so called Vanderslice candidate - Sherrod Brown, and see if Vanderslice actually did something worthy of an article. Here is Brown's performance in the same segments:

Hmmm. It looks like Sherrod Brown outperformed Dems nationally as well, and by about 10 percentage points it looks like on the frequent church goers line. Did Vanderslice work that one? Why yes she did.

So let me get this straight, Mara Vanderslice is the reason why Sherrod Brown did that well? Are you shitting me? Sherrod Brown was preaching the gospel is the storyline now? My gawd, for a person of faith, this Vanderslice person is quite the liar. Who else did she work for?

Stabenow did 3 points better among Democrats than Granholm. So maybe that one point squeezed out from white evangelicals cost Granholm 3 points from 40% of the electorate. MAYBE not good political strategy.

Let us be serious for a moment. My microanalysis is facetious. I have no idea why there are slight variations in the results of Granholm and Stabenow. But the New York Times pretends they do. The idiot Mike McCurry is quoted as saying:

The midterm elections were a “proof point” for arguments that Ms. Vanderslice had made two years before, said Mike McCurry, a Democratic consultant and former spokesman for President Bill Clinton who worked with Ms. Vanderslice on the Kerry campaign. For the Democrats, Mr. McCurry said, Ms. Vanderslice and her company “were the only ones taking systematic, methodical steps to build a religious component in the practical campaign work.”

What a load. Ms. Vanderslice had no impact and proved absolutely nothing. I hate these idiots in DC. They are just the worst.

This kind of slick talk (and it is slick) reminds me of the anti-abortion groups who also claim they are just trying to "open a dialog."......

....That "reasonable" woman [Mary Kay Culp, president of Kansans For Life] who appeared on NOW talking about "dialog" was the staunchest supporter of that creepy nutball [Atty. Gen. Phill ] Kline, who was uncermoniously booted from his job by the people of Kansas in November. She will say anything, as you can easily see by a simple Google search; her words are well tailored to each different audience. The woman is a political operative.

I believe that Ms Vanderslice is doing much the same thing, although she's working within the Democratic party rather than as an outside activist:

These guys will lie, cheat, steal, and then stab you in the back, all to bring "reasobable debate" about abortion into politics. Problem is that religion is not reasonable and neither are they

How did abortion become such a deeply framed issue and the fate of millions of kids living in poverty and fear become one of "poor life choices" etc? Excuse me but, effing, shameless, hyopcrites explain yourselves.

The right2lifers care about 12 cells as human but continually vote for politicians who cut welfare, head start, college loans while simultaneously expanding death row and prison pops for non-violent drug offenders.

is a load of meaningless crap all by itself. everyone is a "values voter", it's not the monopoly of any one group. we all vote whatever our particular "values" happen to be. anyone claiming otherwise should be burned at the political stake. probably one of those losers with a BS in poly sci.

frankly, one of the biggest mistakes the democrats have made, in terms of voter demographics, is allowing the republicans to co-opt the term "values", as though it's some mystical incantation, that only they can hear.